


One and the Same

by sciencebutch



Category: Marvel, Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredible Hulk (Comics)
Genre: Adult Bruce Banner, At the same time, Autistic Bruce Banner, Bruce Banner Angst, Bruce Banner-centric, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Introspection, Kid Bruce Banner, also as per usual, as per usual, as well as, bomb origin and not serum origin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-01-15 17:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18503536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencebutch/pseuds/sciencebutch
Summary: There's an accident in Bruce's lab, and he wakes up to find himself face to face with...himself. Only the other version of him is four years old.Or...In which Bruce Banner has to face his past and the Hulk. (But really, aren't they just the same thing, anyway?)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "wow hope don't you have like. four other chaptered works you're writing?" **yeah so what**
> 
>  
> 
> tw for typical introspective bruce thoughts, you know how it is (suicidal ideation, child abuse, Sadness)

Laboratories were white, devoid of color—smooth white countertops atop smooth white tile. White ceiling, white floors, white chairs. Maybe that’s why Bruce liked them—labs, that is—maybe he migrated to them because they were so pristine. So white. The sterility a stark contrast to the filthy squalor in which he had lived for so long, the cleanliness a comfort. The white not green or red. Not green like the other guy, like gamma or regrets, and not red like the blood that would tangle in his hair or stain the grout lines of his past cells a sick burgundy. No reminders. Just white. 

 

The other guy didn’t like the white, didn’t like labs because labs were for cures, labs were for his eradication. The other guy preferred green and red. Green like strength and the forests he ran to. Red like the sand on which he first opened his eyes after the searing heat of the bomb. 

 

Green and red were Bruce’s least favorite colors. It only made sense for them to be Hulk’s favorite. Their existence was a paradox, a living contradiction. The brains and the brawn, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and his monster, all teeming and living under the same skin. There were a lot of times where Bruce felt so furious about having to share his body with something else, so incredibly mad that it’s suffocating, that he just wants to rip out the Hulk like some malignant tumor; wants to split in half and pull apart like cells undergoing mitosis. Hulk will have a body, and Bruce will have his, and Bruce will finally...finally…

 

He doesn’t know what he would do after that. He just wants to  _ breathe _ . The Hulk resides in his lungs and takes up all the space. A harsh weight, a burden, getting heavier and heavier each day as Hulk’s crimes pile up, guilt accumulates, higher and higher until Bruce is sure he’ll asphyxiate. And even then, he still wouldn’t die.

 

Bruce wants to die, he thinks. People always long for the things they can never have, and he is no different. His only qualm with dying - besides the fact that he couldn’t - is that he couldn’t decide if it was selfish or not. Back then, back when he lived with Susan and visited Jen during the summer, it would have been, because those were people who cared. Hell, even now he has Tony and the rest of the team. The Avengers. They like him - probably, even if they still talk to him as if he were made of glass. But five people who liked him are far outweighed by the corpses piled around him. The red red  _ red _ on his ledger. The broken families, the people he’s hurt,  _ Betty… _

 

But he can’t find it in him to care about some of the crowds that riot for his imprisonment outside the tower on occasion, or the swarms of army men who he’s smashed. They were all just masses of anonymity, people of nameless faces and faceless names. The Avengers meant something, though. Like Tony and his white white labs. At least his death would be significant to them. In a sad way - not a victorious one, as if the world had finally gotten rid of another monster. 

 

Which would be true - even Bruce can’t delude himself into thinking people would mourn - but Bruce likes to think that at least a few people would be sad. 

Did he deserve that? That sadness? Bruce doesn’t know if he deserves anything. 

 

“Hey, Green Bean - you okay?” Tony. Bruce had forgotten he was there - quite a feat in itself; the man demanded his presence be known everywhere he went.

Bruce hadn’t realized that he had taken his hands away from the keyboard he had been typing on. They were currently wringing of their own accord, fueled by thoughts beyond his control. 

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Just doing some inconsequential equations for this project I’m working on.”

 

They weren’t inconsequential. 

It was a habit of his to zone out when doing busy work. He must have misplaced a variable or done a calculation wrong, because when he attempted the first test run of the machine he had built, it went very awry.

Things going very awry in a lab usually meant they blew up, which is exactly what happened. The machine exploded, like how they did in movies; chunks of metal and shrapnel propelling outward, accompanied by a wave of intense heat and fire. Bruce raised his arms to shield himself, but the concussive blast catapulted him back against a lab table. His head made contact with a disgusting thud, and then Bruce was unconscious. 

 

Bruce smells burning, burning like when he put toast in the toaster for too long. It was a black smell, all bitter, and it makes his nose scrunch up and eyes squeeze tight. The ground is all hard under him. He doesn’t remember lying on the ground at all before the smell of burning. He had been in the school library even though he wasn’t supposed to be there after school was over, and reading a book about Albert Einstein. And then he was on the ground and there was burning. He makes a sound like the neighbor’s dog when it’s scared, and rolls over all slow. His head hurts, but it’s an inside hurt, not an outside one like he’s used to. There’s the outside hurt on his arm, though: a big purple bruise. But it’s almost all better, Momma said. Bruce opens his eyes and sees a man lying on the ground like him. 

A little scream comes out of his mouth but he covers it real quick, because he didn’t want the man to hear him. He stands fast and moves away even though he feels like how it feels when he would spin around too fast, like the world is spinning with him. He doesn’t know how Daddy got here, because Daddy either stayed at work late or went ‘out’ until so late it was early. But Bruce had been at the library anyway, and even if he was home he doesn’t remember Daddy saying he was going ‘out’, because when he was going ‘out’ Momma’s eyes would get all scared. 

Bruce looked all around him, and saw white like how labs looked in the books he read in the library. White like milk. And there was a machine, but it was broken and black smoke flew out of it. It must have been the source of the burning. Did Daddy bring him to his lab? Why would he do that? He doesn’t know why he would do that because Daddy didn’t even want him to go into his office at home or even read books or anything. 

“Doctor Banner?” Says a voice out of nowhere. Bruce bites his lip. Doctor Banner was Daddy. That’s what the Coworkers who came over on nights where Bruce had to be Perfect called him. Doctor Banner. Bruce whines and dashes under a nearby table so he can’t see Daddy anymore, and he hides under it bunched up in a little ball, small and teeny tiny. “Doctor Banner, are you okay?” the same voice asks. Bruce doesn’t answer because he’s quiet, quiet like how Momma said to be around Daddy. Maybe the voice is a Coworker. 

“Doctor Banner?” asks another voice, this one deeper than the other one. Bruce squeaks on accident, squeaks like a little mouse, and buries his head deeper in his arms. There are footsteps and they stop, and Bruce focuses his hearing and hears a quiet: “Christ,” then louder: “Jarvis, what happened?” 

“Doctor Banner’s experiment went awry. His vitals are fine, he is just unconscious. I estimate he’ll be awake momentarily.” That was no good. Bruce didn’t want Daddy to wake up, he  _ didn’t _ . Even though that thought made him feel all gross inside, he didn’t want Daddy to wake up ever. “However,” the voice who’s Jarvis says, “there was an unexpected side effect of the experiment; I’d recommend you look under the table closest to you, Captain.” 

Bruce pushes back against the back wall of the table as far as he can go. 

“Oh? What is--” Bruce sees Captain’s legs and then sees Captain’s hand and then sees Captain’s face. He’s big, big and strong and tall as a mountain, and his hair is yellow. Bruce makes the little mouse squeak again and crawls out and around him fast fast fast and jumps through the big hands that try to grab him and runs runs runs until he’s against the wall in a corner like that mouse in the Saturday morning cartoon he watched sometimes. Captain is the cat, then, but he isn’t being threatening like the cat would be, instead he’s walking towards him slow. Bruce’s chest is breathing really fast and quick.

“Hey,” Captain says, his voice like Momma’s is when Bruce is scared. Bruce doesn’t talk back. “Hey kiddo, what’s your name?” he sounds nice, but he’s still a man and he’s still big and strong and tall as a mountain. Bruce answers, because he doesn’t want Captain to get mad at him; he looks stronger than Daddy is.

“Br...Bruce,” Bruce says. Captain’s eyes get all wide and Bruce smooshes himself into the corner further, still breathing fast and quick.

“Bruce...Banner?” Captain asks, though he seems unsure when he asks. 

Bruce nods.

Captain moves a hand through his yellow hair, and he breathes out loud and long. “Oh jeez,” his voice sounds like his breath. Then his face changes and he looks nice again, and says, “Hey Bruce, I’m Captain America. Are you okay?” Bruce frowns because Captain America is dead, he read so in the comics. But Bruce nods even though Captain America is dead, because you should always say yes when someone asks if you’re okay, Daddy said. Or else he’ll get taken away from Momma. “Do you know how you got here?” Captain America asks. Captain America asks a lot of questions. 

Bruce shakes his head no. 

“What were you doing before you got here?”

“Library,” Bruce says, quiet like his voice isn’t all there.

“Were you reading?” Captain America asks. His voice is light like how all adults except Daddy speak to him. And Bruce realizes he made a mistake. He shakes his head no again, this time more fast, his hair flying all around. Daddy said Bruce shouldn’t be in the library, because being in the library made him a freak. Bruce still went to the library, even though he didn’t want to be a freak. He thinks that being a freak is better than being at home with Daddy. 

Captain America tilts his head like he’s confused. “Then what were you doing in the library?” And Bruce can’t think of an answer but he doesn’t need to because there’s a groan back where the burning is and Daddy is awake. Bruce’s eyes widen and he bites his lip to keep from whining. 

“What happened?” Daddy says. His words are sticky, like how they are after he drinks too much.

“Oh um, Doctor Banner,” Captain America says, and Bruce wonders why Captain America works with Daddy, because Captain America doesn’t work with bad people, and Momma had said that Daddy was a bad person. Maybe Momma was wrong and Daddy was right and Bruce really was a freak after all. “You’re machine, uh, exploded.”

“Ugh, yeah. I can feel it,” Daddy says. Daddy’s voice is soft and not hard like usual, even though it’s tight with pain. It’s nice, Bruce thinks. Maybe this is how he talked to Coworkers.

Bruce can hear Daddy moving, so he pushes himself against the wall harder, hoping that he’ll sink into it, or something. He sees Captain America glance at him quickly before turning back to look where Daddy is. Neither of them can see Daddy until he stands up, though, and Captain America moves closer to him while Bruce moves further away.

“Doctor Banner, there’s something you should uh, see,” Captain America says while looking at Daddy, who was looking right at Bruce. Bruce tries to look right back at Daddy, because if he doesn’t, Daddy gets mad and calls him a freak, but eye contact makes Bruce feel all weird and he doesn’t like it. But he tries because he doesn’t want to get hurt. 

Daddy is looking at Bruce and his eyes are all wide and shiny and his mouth is open like he’s surprised. Daddy looks scared almost, Bruce realizes. Bruce had never seen Daddy scared.

“What--? What?  _ What _ ?” Is all Daddy can say. Bruce shoves himself into the corner even harder.

Captain America looks very out of his depth, like how Ms. P looks when he knows all the answers in class. “This is, uh, Bruce--” he starts to say, before Bruce explodes with words and words and words that he shouldn’t say but  _ does _ .

“I’m sorry Daddy, I didn’t mean to come here, please don’t be mad, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Daddy looks even more scared than he did before, and his mouth traces over the word “Daddy”. And then he turns and runs out of the room. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. this is the fastest ive ever gotten another chapter out
> 
> Enjoy :)

He practically sprints to the elevator, ignoring the pounding in his head that was caused either from his head hitting the table or from the presence of, of…

Of  _ him _ . As a  _ child _ .

“JARVIS, my floor, please!” Bruce manages to gasp before his throat chokes and strangles him so much that he can’t breathe anymore, let alone talk.

Bruce didn’t want this. He didn’t mean for this to happen, he really didn’t. 

It was like Hulk but  _ worse _ , somehow.

He called him  _ Daddy _ . He thought Bruce was his  _ father _ . 

Oh,  _ God _ ...

Bruce runs to the bathroom of his suite and dry heaves into the toilet, supporting himself with limbs trembling like leaves. His heart beats hard in his chest, trying to escape the vice that was his ribcage. It takes him a couple of tries to stand when his stomach stops trying to vacate his body, and he stumbles backward and has to lean on the wall, let it take some of his weight. 

He knows he shouldn’t look in the mirror.

He should just leave and go to his bedroom and lock his door and ignore this. Grab the bag he kept packed at all times and leave. 

And yet, some dark and sadistic curiosity unfurls in his sternum, blooming like a lotus, growing like lichen on bark. He needs to see  _ why _ . Why he looks like  _ him _ . 

Bruce looks in the mirror, leaning in so his face is all he can see and his breath fogs up the glass a little. His hands grip the edge of the sink until his knuckles turn white as the porcelain. He already knew of the high cheekbones, so sharp and not soft like Momma’s, sharp and high so that his cheeks look sunken in comparison, exacerbated by the years of starvation and malnutrition. The tall forehead that wrenched and wrinkled in the same way when he got angry, the jawline...

Maybe it was the stubble, like salt and pepper specks on his upper lip, almost a mustache. He hadn’t had time to shave in the past few days. He sucks in a breath and reels back and his arms scramble through the medicine cabinet, looking desperately for a razor, knocking the bottle of mouthwash and his tube of toothpaste to the counter in his haste. Shaky hands fumble with the handle of the razor as he brings it to his face, and he’s about halfway down his jaw before JARVIS talks and he startles, nicking a small cut into his flesh. 

“Dr. Banner?”

“What?” he mutters distractedly, voice trembling only slightly as he grabs some toilet paper to press to the wound, keep his poison blood from dripping anywhere.

“Your presence is requested in your lab,” and Bruce tries to chuckle drily but it just comes out as a sob. He doesn’t want to go. He just wants to lay in his bed for eternity and ignore this. Ignore everything. Wants to run and hide, like he always does, because Banner is a  _ coward _ \--

The cut on his cheek scabs and heals over as Bruce watches through eyesight blurred by tears. 

He doesn’t go down to his lab.

 

* * *

 

Captain America doesn’t know what to do after Daddy runs out of the room, which is weird, because adults are always supposed to know what to do -  _ especially  _ Captain America! Bruce doesn’t move one bit, doesn’t even squirm, and stays quiet so Captain America doesn’t notice him and blame him for Daddy running because Bruce is such a freak even Daddy runs away from him now, runs like the kids do at recess. 

“Jarvis?” Captain America says up at the ceiling. Jarvis was the one Captain America had been speaking to earlier, even though now Bruce realizes there’s no one else in the room with them. 

“Yes Captain?” Jarvis asks from everywhere at once, like the speaker system at school. Jarvis must talk through something like that, Bruce thought. 

“Can you get Tony down here?” Was Tony another Coworker? Bruce had already messed up being Perfect in front of Captain America because he made Daddy run away. He better not mess up again, or else Daddy would get even madder than he probably already was. Bruce shrinks in on himself again, bending his arms in so he gets small. Small and unnoticeable. 

“Of course,” Jarvis says. Then it’s quiet, so quiet you can hear a pin drop. Bruce had actually wanted to test that saying out, by dropping one of Momma’s sewing pins on the floor of the kitchen to see if the sound waves were strong enough for his ears to hear. But it was never quiet in his house, so he couldn’t. His house was always loud from shouting and Daddy smashing things. Bruce tells Momma that one day he’d get really big and strong so he can smash Daddy right back, whenever she’s sad. She’s sad a lot.

“Are you okay?” Captain America asks and scares Bruce out of his thoughts. He jumps like a startled cat. Captain America had already asked if Bruce was okay. But Bruce doesn’t tell him that because talking back to adults was not Perfect behavior, even if they sometimes said the wrong stuff about physics and you were just trying to correct them. So he doesn’t say anything and nods. 

The door opens to the lab and Bruce jumps again. Another man, this one shorter and not as big as Captain America, walks in the room. His hair is brown and he has a mustache like Daddy does, except there’s hair on his chin also, almost like a beard but smaller. Maybe this was the other Coworker Captain America had mentioned. Tony.

“Capsicle, what’s wrong? I heard there was an explosion? That will  _ never  _ do. Tell Jolly Green that this is a  _ lab _ , not a set for a Michael Bay movie...I’m just kidding, he can blow up whatever he wants, otherwise I’d be a hypocrite. Hey, where is the big guy, anyway--” Tony talks all fast and funny, with names Bruce doesn’t know. Then he looks at him all surprised, probably because Bruce isn’t supposed to be here. He has brown eyes like Bruce, not blue like Captain America’s. “Why is a kid in here? Also,  _ how  _ did a kid get in here?” Bruce wants to turn invisible or let the wall behind him swallow him up so he disappears. 

“Doctor Banner left, and uh,” Captain America looks down at Bruce, and Bruce shrivels up again, all small and curled up like dead leaves. “I’m not sure what happened, to be honest, I--”

“If I may, sirs,” Jarvis interrupted, “I have footage of the incident.” 

The man that just walked in smiled a big smile, all white teeth like a movie star’s. “Perfect. J, put it on.”

A screen appeared out of nowhere, like magic except there’s no such thing - Daddy said so. Bruce’s eyes widen out of wonder, because how did that  _ even happen _ ?! The TV at home was still two feet thick and had cables running from the back to the outlet buttons and an antenna. Bruce didn’t know that this technology could even exist ever! Bruce wondered what Daddy did at his job. Daddy never talked about it. Maybe it was because they worked with this type of technology. Maybe he was a spy, or something, where everything is top secret and the gadgets are all cool.

The screen showed the room Bruce and Tony and Captain America were in, except they weren’t in it. Just Daddy, who was working over the machine that currently smelled like burning. Then there was an explosion, and Daddy flew backwards, hitting his head on the table behind him. Bruce found that he was almost glad that Daddy had gotten hurt, in a way that left a bitter taste in his mouth and in his tummy. Sometimes Daddy hit Bruce so hard he’d go flying back like Daddy did in the explosion, and Bruce would hit his head and the hit would leave a big bump the next day that Momma would have to hide. It’s what Daddy deserved, to get smashed back. But still, he didn’t like the happiness, it made him feel all gross. But he still felt it anyway. 

Then a bunch of green light appeared in the video, and the screen got spotty and staticky so Bruce couldn’t see a thing, like that time he played with the antenna on the TV at home. When the spots and static disappeared Bruce was lying a few feet away from Daddy, as if he had appeared out of thin air.

“Huh. That doesn’t explain all that much,” Tony says, then looks down at Bruce. “Do you know how you got here? Do you remember that green light, or anything?”

Bruce had already answered one of those questions for Captain America, but he didn’t say, because adults know best what questions were stupid and what questions aren’t. So Bruce shakes his head.

“That sucks,” Tony says, and Bruce doesn’t know what else to do, so he nods. “What’s your name, little man?” 

Captain America moves to speak up, “About that--” But Tony hushes him before he can explain. 

“B-Bruce,” Bruce says, looking back and forth at Tony and Captain America. “Bruce B-Banner.” 

Tony blinks, then looks toward Captain America. Captain America says, “That’s what I was going to tell you.” His voice and face were frustrated, but not mad. Bruce couldn’t tell the difference between feelings very good, but he knew the difference between frustrated and mad more than anything, probably. The difference between frustrated and mad told Bruce whether Daddy was going to just ignore him or hurt him and Momma. 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Tony didn’t look at Captain America when he spoke to him, distracted with looking at Bruce. Bruce shrank under Tony’s eyes. “Hey, Bruce,” Tony said all gentle like Momma, “How about we get out of this dirty old lab and go have a snack?”

Bruce nodded, even though he thought the lab was really really nice, with the floaty screens and all the cool equipment. He couldn’t say that, though, because that would make him a freak.

“You hungry?” Tony asked. 

Bruce  _ was  _ hungry, but also he didn’t want to say yes. If he said yes, then he would make Tony happy because he said yes, which was good. But then he would also be imposing and taking up time and wasting money - that’s what Daddy said when Bruce asked for more food during dinner; he said that Bruce should “just be glad we’re feeding you anything at all”, and Momma would be silent until it was bedtime and then sometimes she snuck some extra food up to him anyway. 

But...if Bruce said no, then he wouldn’t be imposing, and taking up time, and wasting money, which was good, but Tony would get upset, maybe even mad, because Bruce didn’t say yes and do what Tony wanted him to do.

Or maybe Tony didn’t actually want to give his snacks to Bruce, maybe he was just asking because that was what was the Polite thing to do. 

Bruce didn’t answer Tony for what felt like a million years. He didn’t want to make Tony upset, because he was supposed to be Perfect in front of the Coworkers, and if Tony got mad, or if Bruce imposed, then Tony would tell Daddy and Daddy would get more mad also and then--

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s alright,” Bruce looked up at Tony real fast, so fast his head spun. Tony’s eyes were wide and worried, and his hands were held up so Bruce could see his palms. “You don’t have to eat if you don’t want to. Here, let’s go upstairs, and if you get hungry, you can pick something out to eat, alright?”

Bruce nodded slowly. His eyes were filled with tears that made everything more blurry. Everything was blurry even without the tears, but the tears made it worse. Momma said he might need glasses. Bruce didn’t want glasses, he thought it would make him look more like a nerd. That’s what the people at recess called him before they ran away and laughed at him.

“Come on,” Tony said, voice still soft like Momma’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are always cherished, loved, and taken excellent care of... ;)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, i didnt proofread this
> 
> also DIALOGUE HARD. what the fuck. how do people talk to each other

It isn’t like Tony doesn’t know what to do, because he does. He most definitely, most assuredly, most certainly  _ does _ . If knowing what to do was like, alcohol, or something, he’d be totally wasted, that’s how much he knew what to do. And there was a very good single malt whiskey hidden in the lab just a floor down, if he wanted to get totally wasted for realsies.

_ Stop it, Stark. Right now is  _ not _ the time for a drink, fuck. _

Tony’s body thought that right now was the perfect time for a drink, however. This was because Tony most definitely, most assuredly, most certainly does  _ not _ know what to do. Not one bit.  

He tries not to stare at the kid - at  _ Bruce _ , Jesus Fuck, how did that even  _ happen _ \- because Bruce seems uncomfortable enough even without anyone staring at him. Tony smothers the reason  _ why _ he looks so uneasy, douses that flame simmering in his mind. He can always relight it later with some of Natasha’s vodka, let it flare up and roar, let it mingle with the heat in his throat and stomach --

_ Not the time. Stop fucking thinking about it. _

Tony has read Bruce’s file - he’s read everyone’s file. Call him paranoid, overly cautious, whatever. The point is, he knows about the shit that went down in Banner’s childhood, and he thinks he could hazard a guess about it now even without the background knowledge of some SHIELD file, just by looking at the kid in front of him. The bruise on his arm, the way he shoves himself into the corner of the room like some cornered animal. The way he freaks out over being asked if he’s hungry.  _ God _ . Tony can’t even handle talking to children who don’t have a fear of adult men instilled in them, he doesn’t know how to deal with  _ this _ .

He should just leave and let Cap take over, let the man throw on his perfect American smile, all shiny and perfect with perfect white teeth and let him handle it perfectly, because Captain America can deal with kids, not Tony Stark. But Bruce Banner is  _ Tony _ ’s friend, his Science Bro, even if the Bruce Banner he’s referring to is M.I.A., not the scared child cowering in the corner in front of him. 

Whatever. Fuck it. He’ll improvise.

...and probably fuck it all up, but that’s what Tony Stark is best at, anyway.

Clint keeps cheap beer up in the vents, the kind that tastes and smells like piss. But Tony’s had worse, and he could probably deal with it -

_ Stop. It. _

“Come on,” he tells Bruce, voice so unnaturally soft for him he surprises even himself. He restrains himself from touching the kid’s shoulder to lead him to the elevator. He doesn’t want to frighten him more than he already had. “Communal floor, J,” Tony directs at the ceiling when the doors close behind them. 

“Right away, Sir.”

The elevator is quiet for all of two seconds. Bruce somehow managed to make himself look even smaller in that short span of time. Tony can’t stand the quiet, never could. So he talks. “Have you met JARVIS yet, Bruce? Like, officially?” 

Bruce shakes his head after a pause. He looks significantly more nervous after the fact, and Tony’s arc reactor aches. 

“It’s alright, little man. It’s been too chaotic for any polite introductions anyway,” he assures. “JARVIS, this is Bruce Banner. Bruce Banner, this is JARVIS, my A.I..” No one ever tells you that the  _ real  _ problem with having your BFF de-aged in some freak lab accident is that it feels quite peculiar to introduce them to your A.I. again.

“Nice to meet you, Mister Banner,” JARVIS says. 

“Nice to meet you too, Mister JARVIS,” Bruce responds.

Tony waits for Bruce to be excited over the fact that there’s a fully functional A.I. built into the building, because come on, it’s a fully fledged  _ artificial intelligence _ \- Turing tested and everything. But the kid doesn’t react. 

“Do you know what an A.I. is, Bruce?” Cap asks. Tony had kind of forgotten the guy he was there. For someone so perfect, he sure was good at being quiet. Bruce nods his head once before he begins to shake it vigorously. “That’s okay,” Cap says, not mentioning the single  _ yes _ before an onslaught of  _ nos _ , “I didn’t either until a few months ago. It’s like, a really smart computer.” 

Tony rolls his eyes. “That’s an understatement, Capsicle,” he says, then looks down to Bruce, who is looking at the floor. “An artificial intelligence can imitate and is almost indistinguishable from human behavior. It’s not just a  _ ‘really smart computer _ ’,” he directs at Cap as the elevator dings and he walks out, leading Bruce into the main room. The kid follows behind him, all docile, hands twitching at his sides. Tony hesitates.

“Uh, hey kid, mind waiting here while me and Cap talk in another room?”

Bruce nods after a beat. Tony grabs Cap’s forearm and drags him into the movie room, (not to be confused with the living room - or TV room, of course). 

“What the  _ fuck _ ?” He whispers urgently as soon as Cap shuts the door. 

Cap gives him a look that conveys “ _ I don’t know! _ ” with the same type of desperation Tony feels bubbling beneath his skin. Tony can see Cap’s perfect apple pie Captain America facade crumble in the dim light of the movie room. Thor has a flask of Asgardian mead somewhere around here -  _ no _ . 

“I mean, what the  _ fuck _ ?!” Tony repeats, voice taut. Clint’s shitty beer -  _ quiet. _

“I don’t  _ know! _ ” 

“What the fuck do we  _ do? _ ” Romanov’s vodka and that single malt -  _ shut the fuck up. _

“I mean, we take care of him, obviously.”

“Of course we fucking do! Why the fuck wouldn’t we take care of him?! He’s Banner, for Christ’s sake!”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I can’t take care of a kid! I suck at that shit!” And therein lay the problem: Tony Stark didn’t know the first thing about childcare. He could hardly take care of  _ himself _ properly, for fucks sake. 

“You seemed pretty good at it,” Cap shrugs. Cap doesn’t  _ understand _ . Of course he doesn’t. He never has. 

Tony just makes a frustrated grunt. Cap’s face softens. 

“I can deal with the kid. Do you want to go take care of…” Cap struggled to find a word that could adequately encapsulate the shit storm of a situation Banner found himself in, “Adult-Banner? I don’t know. What do we call him?” 

Tony shrugged. His mind was too overloaded to come up with any funny quips.

“In any case, he needs to come down and help; he’ll know how to deal with himself as a child better than any of us. We also have to alert the rest of the team about this; Natasha and Clint are returning from their mission on Tuesday, and Thor’s visit with Jane ends on Thursday.”

Tony nods and rubs his neck tiredly. “We can’t contact them while they’re on their mission though, unless it’s through SHIELD - and I don’t want SHIELD to get a hold of this,” Tony doubted that kid-Bruce had Big Green inside of him, but still. SHIELD with any version of Banner was a no-no. Tony knew that Banner didn’t trust _ any _ sort of government organization as far as he could throw them - which, now that Tony’s thinking about it, is a rather poor expression to use considering he could move a mountain if he were in the right mood.

Steve’s eyebrows scrunched in consideration. “Yeah, me neither. We can just tell them when they get back. Thor, however…”

“I’m sure we can let Thor know, considering, you know, he’s not in any life or death situations right now,” Tony said with a dismissive hand wave.

Steve assented reluctantly. “I suppose. But, I don’t want to disturb him while he’s…” he struggled to find the right word.

“Plowing down?” Tony suggested. Steve glared. “Getting his banana peeled? Slammin’ the clam? Burying the weasel? I can keep going.”

“No need,” Steve said tersely. “I was  _ going  _ to say ‘enjoying time with his girlfriend’.”

“That was my next suggestion.” 

Steve sighed and rubbed his forehead, like an exasperated parent. “No. No, we can handle this. We don’t need to bother Thor. We can handle taking care of a kid,” Steve seemed to be trying to convince himself of this more than Tony, “We can do this.”

Tony still tried to take the Captains reassurance to heart, despite it not being for him. “Yeah. If two Avengers can’t handle taking care of a child, then who can?” his pep talk felt weak even to his own ears.

Steve gave him a weak smile and a thumbs up. 

They could do this.

 

* * *

 

Bruce didn’t move from the spot where Captain America and Tony told him to stay. Moving would make him not Perfect, and Bruce needed to be Perfect. Maybe then Daddy will stop calling him a freak and hurting Momma because of him. He only moves his hands a little bit while they’re gone, but he stops when he remembers that he’s trying not to be a freak; Daddy said only freaks move their hands like he does sometimes. So instead he rocks back and forth on his heels, because Daddy never said anything about that.

“Hey kiddo,” says Tony when he comes into the room. 

“Hello,” Bruce says, all quiet like he’s supposed to be.

“I’m going to go up and talk to, uh,” Tony looks over to Captain America, who looks back at Tony, like how adults do when they know something Bruce doesn’t. “Dr. Banner, alright?” 

Bruce nods, even though it isn’t alright, because he doesn’t want Tony to tell Daddy how not Perfect he’s been in front of him and Captain America because then Momma will get hurt. “Okay,” his voice is even quieter than it was last time, so much that Bruce can barely hear it come from his own mouth.

“Hey, you okay?” Captain America asks. Probably because he’s too quiet. Being too quiet makes people think something is wrong. So Bruce stops being too quiet.

“I’m okay,” he says, louder. Not too loud though, he thinks, because being too loud isn’t Perfect. And Ms. P always told him to use his inside voice, because sometimes he’s too loud even when he doesn’t mean to be. 

“Great,” Tony says, but his voice breaks like when you step on a stick in the woods, “I’ll be back soon, ‘kay kiddo? Get along with Cap here.” And then he’s gone and on the elevator and it’s just Captain America and Bruce. 

They both stand there for what feels like a million years but is probably only two seconds. 

“I’m going to make lunch, come have some with me,” Captain America says, before walking to the kitchen. 

This room is very big, probably bigger than Bruce’s whole house. There are a lot of windows too. He takes a very short look out of one and sees that they’re very very high up. Bruce has never been this high up before. It makes his arms and head feel all wavy. Dizzy but not really. There’s a big kitchen with a fridge that’s bigger than any fridge Bruce has ever seen. There are pictures stuck to it with magnets of weird faces. One looks like Captain America, and there’s a red and gold one with weird rectangle eyes, and one with a purple mask, and one with red hair, and an angry green face. Some of the pictures on the fridge are really good, with the same people in them that are on the magnets, and some look like the type of things he would draw with crayons sometimes.

Bruce stands in the kitchen and watches Captain America get tomatoes and onions and garlic from a pantry, and butter from the fridge. Captain America turns to look at him.

“You can sit on one of the stools, if you want,” he points to the tall chairs behind the counter in the middle of the kitchen, “do you need help up?”

“Thank you,” Bruce says because you should always be Polite. He doesn’t need help up on the chair though, because they have little bars that he can use like a ladder. “I’m okay though.” Maybe Daddy would be proud of him for not needing help from one of the Coworkers. 

“Do you like tomato soup?” Captain America asks. Bruce nods. He really does, it’s like the SpaghettiOs Momma would make for dinner but without the pasta. The school served it for lunch once. “My Ma used to make it for me when I was sick. I was sick a lot as a kid, you know.”

Bruce knows, he’s read the comic books and seen some of the TV shows. Captain America got a shot that made him big and strong, so he could beat the bad guys. Sometimes Bruce wishes he could get a shot like that, too. But all he got when he went to the doctor was a flu vaccine that made his arm hurt after.

Captain America took the stems off the tomatoes and put them in a blender. “This is going to be loud, make sure you cover your ears,” he warned. Bruce didn’t need to be told to do that, but at least this way he wouldn’t be disobeying if he did. When the tomatoes were blended he heated up butter in a pot, then turned to cut up onions and garlic. “So,” Captain America says, obviously trying to start a conversation, because adults didn’t like for it to be silent while he was around, “do you like to draw, Bruce?” 

“A little bit,” Bruce says, even though he wasn’t very good at it. “Daddy says it’s a waste of time,” he says on accident. His eyes widen and he breathes in fast and looks at Captain America, who’s still cutting onions. Bruce isn’t supposed to mention the stuff Daddy says to Coworkers or anyone because then he’ll get taken away from Momma. He waits for Captain America to get mad and yell and stomp and smash. He stays frozen, and the only part of him that moves is his heart that is all loud in his ears even though his heart is in his chest and not his head. 

“Do you think it’s a waste of time?” is all Captain America says. 

Bruce wonders what the right answer is. He hates talking about feelings and stuff because he never knows what the right answer is. Math and science is easy because there are patterns and facts and everything makes sense. Getting the wrong answer with feelings stuff meant getting hurt. “No,” he said, then remembered that Coworkers worked with Daddy so they probably agreed with him, “I mean, yes.”

“You’re allowed to have an opinion, Bruce,” Captain America says. His voice is quieter and more heavy than it was when he asked if Bruce liked to draw. 

Bruce  _ knew _ he was allowed to have an opinion. It’s just that usually he had the wrong one. “I know.”

“Okay, good,” Captain America said as he threw the onions and garlic in the pot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im projecting. what are feelings? who knows man

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on [tumblr!](https://hulklesbian.tumblr.com/)


End file.
